Van Morrison: Astral Weeks - Music on Google Play 1 0 A Google User Art in a rare form I only recently began to explore the Folk music Genre. I of course had heard of Van Morrison growing up, however I had no knowledge of his earlier works. In their entirety I must say a masterful form of self expression. Dane Cunningham Astral weeks van morrison Youth sentiment, after all these years still brilliant. Listen to comfortably numb live with pink floyd at the Berlin wall Janet Chambless Life Changing This album will change your life. And if you're suicidal, this album will save your life. Michael Reilly All time greats. Incredible record, one of the best ever. Beauty in the music, musicianship, and poetry being sung as only Van can. Headphones, a great bottle of wine, and a quiet peaceful place is highly recommended when going on this Astral Weeks journey. Gordon Russell Full Review Dane Cunningham October 8, 2015 Astral weeks van morrison Youth sentiment, after all these years still brilliant.

Listen to comfortably numb live with pink floyd at the Berlin wall Full Review Janet Chambless May 14, 2016 Life Changing This album will change your life. And if you're suicidal, this album will save your life. Full Review Michael Reilly March 5, 2016 All time greats. Incredible record, one of the best ever. Beauty in the music, musicianship, and poetry being sung as only Van can. Headphones, a great bottle of wine, and a quiet peaceful place is highly recommended when going on this Astral Weeks journey. Gordon Russell March 7, 2014 Astral Peaks A unique album that neither he nor anyone else has surpassed. Full Review Kanenee Johnson January 29, 2014 Classic His voice is warm, spicy and rich! One of the most passionatly raw voices ive ever heard...mesmerizing! Full Review Susan Hicks December 18, 2013 Archetypal Astral Weeks is archetypal. Give it a chance: it will grab your soul and never let go.

Classic David Dunkin December 3, 2014 Ballerina I played this when my niece was doing ballet in 1980. She still loves it today Tonya Johnson November 17, 2013 Beyond the Cosmos One of the most important albums of all time.Nothing but pure magic ! Robert Moore April 23, 2015 astral weeks class Mark Kelly October 9, 2014 One of the best albums ever made,simple Mike Uxx February 21, 2013 One of the best albums... Of all time. Ann Rutledge April 6, 2014 Astral Weeks Real loving cosmic michael saddler May 5, 2015 astral weeks . magical Steve Danis June 3, 2015 Bestartistofalltime Gavin Valle May 25, 2014 Amazing. Transcendental. Vince s June 17, 2014 Unreal...and surreal.. Kati Radder June 23, 2014 Mystical!

plumber p October 29, 2015 Hypnotizing Learn and talk about Astral Weeks (song), 1968 songs, Songs written by Van Morrison, Van Morrison songs Recording[ edit ] On the first recording session for the album on September 25, 1968, this song was the last of four recorded for that date. John Payne, the flautist who had been working with Morrison, said it was the first time he had ever heard it, and that although the song may sound rehearsed it was actually captured from the only take. [1] [2] Composition[ edit ] Morrison described the song "Astral Weeks" as being: "like transforming energy, or going from one source to another with it being born again like a rebirth. I remember reading about you having to die to be born. It's one of those songs where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel and that's basically what the song says." [3] Morrison told Steve Turner that he was working on the song back in Belfast in 1966 when he visited painter Cezil McCartney who had drawings on astral projection "and that's why I called it "Astral Weeks".

[1] Brian Hinton 's review of the song states: "All is uncertain, this spiritual rebirth a question still, not a statement, and Van equates his move to a new world — both America and that of love— with a sense of being lost, "ain't nothing but a stranger in this world". [3] Acclaim[ edit ] The song "Astral Weeks" was rated #475 on the WXPN All Time Greatest Songs in 2004 [4] and #875 on the list of 885 Essential Songs voted on by listeners of WXPN in 2008. [5] Appearance on other albums[ edit ] "Astral Weeks" was featured on Morrison's album Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl , released in 2009 to celebrate forty years since Astral Weeks was first released. References[ edit ] Heylin, Clinton (2003). Can You Feel the Silence? Van Morrison: A New Biography, Chicago Review Press, ISBN 1-55652-542-7 Hinton, Brian (1997).

Celtic Crossroads: The Art of Van Morrison, Sanctuary, ISBN 1-86074-169-X Original courtesy of Wikipedia: — Please support Wikipedia. This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia . A portion of the proceeds from advertising on Digplanet goes to supporting Wikipedia. We're sorry, but there's no news about "Astral Weeks (song)" right now. Limit to books that you can completely read online Include partial books (book previews) Oops, we seem to be having trouble contacting Twitter Support Wikipedia A portion of the proceeds from advertising on Digplanet goes to supporting Wikipedia. Please add your support for Wikipedia! Searchlight Group Digplanet also receives support from Searchlight Group. Visit Searchlight Copyright © 2009-2017 Digparty. All rights reserved. Astral Years | Pitchfork Events Astral Years Mike Powell on his love-hate relationship with Van Morrison's 1968 album Astral Weeks, and how changes in our personal tastes can mirror broader transitions in our lives as we grow older. August 30 2013 Secondhands is a new column that examines music of the past through a modern lens.

I am 15 years old and Van Morrison ’s Astral Weeks is the worst music I have ever heard in my life. Worse than Jewel, worse than the soundtrack to Cats, even worse than “Brown-Eyed Girl”, a song our local oldies station plays whenever I get into my mom’s car, where I sink into the passenger seat with shame as she sings along: “Makin’ love in the green, green grass/ Behind the stadium with you.” I only bother listening to Astral Weeks at all because my best friend loves it, and my instinct is to try and feel as much of what he feels as possible. At 15, this is one of the ways we create safety: The more we have in common, the less alone we are. So he plays Astral Weeks in his busted silver Nissan and the carpeted bedroom on the second floor of his dad’s house, and he gives me that expectant look people give you when they’re trying to use music to communicate something they can’t in their own words; using it to try and build a bridge between you and them.

I sit cross-legged on the carpet and listen, waiting for all these terrible lines about ballerinas to resonate in the pit of my horny and frustrated soul-- waiting, in short, to understand. It takes another 15 years. To a white suburban punk with an almost-puritanical allergy to anything you could call “expressive,” Morrison’s music is a true enemy: earnest, mysterious, and committed to revelation. It’s like the Doors , but harder to make fun of. Every time he wails, I have bad flashbacks to the cantors at my synagogue, with their stale-smelling beards and messages of love, welcoming me into understanding arms. It’s possible I’m afraid of music as warm as Morrison’s for the same reason I’m afraid to tell the psychologist my school has forced me to see how I “really feel.” But at 15, I think of myself as being acutely able to separate truth from bullshit, which seems to be everywhere. Morrison recorded Astral Weeks in 1968. He was 23.

He was also broke, dejected, just married, and a new resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he lived in a street-level apartment with no phone and a mattress on the floor. A few months earlier, he’d fulfilled a bad contract for a label called Bang Records by improvising 31 songs in a little over a half hour. One of them is about ringworm; another is about danishes. It insulted everybody involved, especially Van Morrison. At one point, he was legally forbidden from playing or recording in New York; at another, the label-owner’s wife tried to have him deported. Nobody who played on the sessions for Astral Weeks has anything nice to say about the experience. Morrison reportedly recorded all his parts in one booth, while the rest of the musicians recorded in another. Drummer Connie Kay, a longtime member of the Modern Jazz Quartet, said Morrison told him to play whatever he wanted; Richard Davis, a jazz bassist credited as the de facto bandleader, said Morrison never even introduced himself. Part of what’s remarkable about Astral Weeks is that you don’t hear any of this.

You don’t hear the frustration, the bitterness, or the cynicism that can so easily ferment in people when things don’t go their way. You don’t hear the physical alienation of the players, who seem to circle Van Morrison like a wreath of roses. Received wisdom about the album is that it dissolved boundaries between soul, R&B, folk and jazz. Its eight songs-- four of which are over seven minutes long-- don’t obey rules in the way other songs do. They don’t evolve so much as they double back on themselves, retracing lines and melodies for minutes at a time. Listening to them is like watching a black-and-white image become steadily flooded with color: The architecture of the music is there from the first second, but the songs become clearer and more vivid as they go on. At 15, Astral Weeks was a catalog of feelings I was too afraid to have; at 30, it’s a catalog of feelings I can’t ever have again. I can understand what I didn’t like about the album when I was younger, but in retrospect, Astral Weeks has a meditative, almost autistic intensity that I’ve always loved in music.

It’s the same quality I hear in newer albums like The Money Store by Death Grips or Impersonator by Majical Cloudz , or why I prefer Yeezus to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy : They’re obsessively narrow statements that fuel the myth of the artist as someone who is not well-rounded, who is not capable of seeing all points of view or transcending the confines of their own perspective-- basically, the myth of the artist as someone who has yet to transform from a child into an adult. Audiences can appreciate this myth because they’ve probably experienced flashes of romantic single-mindedness, too. But it’s also that life-- in its variety and responsibilities-- doesn’t give us much room to be single-minded, and so we need to step sideways into the parallel universe of art, where we’re allowed to feel those narrow teenage feelings for as long as the album lasts.

In drafting this column, I wrote paragraph after paragraph about all the albums that Morrison released after Astral Weeks; about the resplendent “Linden Arden Stole the Highlights” from Veedon Fleece; about Morrison’s transition from the loose sounds of Astral Weeks into the tight, full-band R&B of Moondance ; about how by the 1974 live album It’s Too Late to Stop Now , even the digressions of “Cyprus Avenue”, a pillar of Astral Weeks, had turned into a coordinated rave-up that Morrison used to end his concerts-- a song about the freedom and confusion of adolescence performed with the control of a showman. I wrote about the 1980s, too; about how Morrison continued to record great, despicably uncool albums like 1982’s Beautiful Vision -- albums that seem unconcerned with appealing to anyone besides Van Morrison.

I wrote about how part of the fun of getting into an artist like Van Morrison-- or Stevie Wonder , or Prince , or anyone who seems like an open-and-shut case until you find out they had a reggae phase, or are actually still alive-- isn’t just listening to the masterpiece, but the thirty-something albums that came after it, most of which have no reputation at all. But I kept coming back to Astral Weeks. To say a record came out in 1968 is a matter of historical fact, but the reality is that records come out whenever people hear them first. Having been born in 1982, the year 1968 is an abstraction to me. At best, I can read a book about it, or talk about it with my parents. But in the context of my own experience, Astral Weeks was released around 1998, along with Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody?”, Brighten the Corners by Pavement, Brahms’ fourth symphony, and a mixtape from my friend Meghan Kennedy, plastered in butterfly stickers and filled end-to-end with funk songs I still don’t know the names of.

Because I’m someone who sometimes gets paid to write about music, people like to ask me what I’m listening to now. I know they want to hear about new music, but what I really want to tell them is that it’s always the music that I’ve been listening to for the longest time, regardless of whether I like it or not, that seems newest to me. I want to tell them that Astral Weeks makes a lot more sense to me in the context of an album like Animal Collective’s Sung Tongs or the seemingly infinite loops of a Todd Terje track than anything from 1968. I want to tell them that at 15, the album was a catalog of feelings I was too afraid to have; at 30, it’s a catalog of feelings I can’t ever have again. It is December 2012 and I’m walking through light winter rain down 17th St. between 6th and 7th Ave. in Manhattan, listening to Astral Weeks on my headphones. Good-looking people shiver together on the sidewalk outside a corner restaurant. I used to live here.

When I was a kid, the corner restaurant was a cheaper corner restaurant, and the brick apartment building next door was a parking lot. The day I made it to the end of the block on my bike without training wheels, the lot attendants called out my name, clapping, “Miguelito, Miguelito.” “Cyprus Avenue” comes on. In it, Van Morrison is 14 years old and in love. His girl comes down the lane on white horses with rainbow ribbons in her hair, attended by a harpsichord player who seems incapable of staying on beat. When he finally slides into step with the rest of the band, my neck hair prickles with excitement: It is the sound of someone finding their way back to where they belong. I get a call from the friend who introduced me to Astral Weeks 15 years earlier. He wants to know if I want to celebrate his cousin's 24th birthday. We will go to city parties and do drugs and stay up all night. “Why not?” I tell him. We used to spend every weekend at each others' houses; now we only see each other about twice a year.

Two or three hours later I am standing in the corner of a crowded loft while someone in skinny jeans and a parka screams in my face about how French Montana is the future of rap. I am sweating, I am laughing, I am thinking of a lyric from “Sweet Thing”: “I will never grow so old again.” Astral Weeks - Van Morrison | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic Astral Weeks google+ AllMusic Review by William Ruhlmann Astral Weeks is generally considered one of the best albums in pop music history, but for all that renown, it is anything but an archetypal rock and roll album. It it isn't a rock and roll album at all. Van Morrison plays acoustic guitar and sings in his elastic, bluesy, soulful voice, accompanied by crack group of jazz studio players: guitarist Jay Berliner , upright bassist Richard Davis , Modern Jazz Quartet drummer Connie Kay , vibraphonist Warren Smith and soprano saxophonist John Payne (also credited on flute, though that's debatable--some claim an anonymous flautist provided those parts).

Producer Lewis Merenstein added chamber orchestrations later and divided the album into halves: "In The Beginning" and "Afterwards" with four tunes under each heading. Morrison's songs are an instinctive, organic mixture of Celtic folk, blues and jazz. He fully enters the mystic here, more in the moment than he ever would be again in a recording studio. If his pop hit "Brown-Eyed Girl" was the first place he explored the "previous"--i.e. the depths of his memory--for inspiration and direction, he immerses himself in it here. The freewheeling, loose feel adds to the intimacy and immediacy in the songs. They are for the most part, extended, incantory, loosely narrative and poetic ruminations on his Belfast upbringing: its characters, shops, streets, alleys, and sidewalks, all framed by the innocence and passage of that era. Morrison seems hypnotized by his subjects; they comfort and haunt a present filled with inexhaustible longing and loneliness.

He confesses as much in the title track: "If I ventured in the slipstream/Between the viaducts of your dream/Where immobile steel rims crack/And the ditch in the back roads stop/ Could you find me?/ Would you kiss-a my eyes/... To be born again...." Morrison doesn't reach out to the listener, but goes deep inside himself to excavate and explore. The album's centerpiece is "Madame George" a stream-of-consciousness narrative of personal psychological and spiritual archetypes deeply influenced by the road novels of Jack Kerouac. The climactic epiphany experienced on "Cyprus Avenue" paints a portrait of place and time so vividly, it fools listeners into the experience of shared---but mythical--memory. "The Way Young Lovers Do" is the most fully-formed tune here. Its swinging jazz verses and tight rhythmic choruses underscore a simmering, passionate eroticism in Morrison 's lyric and delivery. Astral Weeks is a justified entry in pop music's pantheon. It is unlike any record before or since; it mixes together the very best of postwar popular music in an emotional outpouring cast in delicate, subtle, musical structures.

Track Listing Van Morrison - Astral Weeks Live At the Hollywood Bowl (10 tracks) +Album Reviews Van Morrison Track Listings (10) - Disc #1 Astral Weeks - I Believe I've Transcended (6:32-3:24) Beside You (5:59) Slim Slow Slider - I Start Breaking Down (4:08-3:37) Sweet Thing (5:38) The Way Young Lovers Do (3:18) Cyprus Avenue - You Came Walking Down (4:40-1:19) Ballerina - Move On Up (6:36-3:09) Madame George (8:43) Listen To The Lion - The Lion Speaks (5:15-2:29) Common One (6:39) Recorded in 1968 when the Belfast-bred, blues-rock music legend Van Morrison was just 22 years old, Astral Weeks immediately received critical acclaim and continues to be cited as one of the greatest albums of the rock era... more » .

Subsequently the album has been ranked on numerous Best Albums of All Time lists, including #19 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and the 40th Greatest Album Ever on VH-1's list in 2003. Both Astral Weeks and Moondance (Morrison's next album) were inducted into the Grammyï¿½ Hall of Fame. Astral Weeks became a cult favorite and was seen almost as a religion to many artists. On November 7 and 8, 2008, four decades later, at the age 63, Van Morrison revisited Astral Weeks live in its entirety at the Hollywood Bowl, and delivered a jawdropping, awe-inspiring performance. The first half of the show featured Morrison playing timeless classics that have made him a legend, while the second half was the breathtaking performance of the Astral Weeks album.Van Morrison did not simply re-create what he did 40 years ago in a NY studio, but instead took the songs to a dramatically higher contemporary level. The jazz-rooted compositions of Astral Weeks are poetic stories of young love and the quest to find one's place in life.

They were, and remain, ideal source material for musical improvisation that gives way to the sense of wonder for which Morrison has always striven. ". . . transcendence is what Morrison has been after with his music from the beginning, and it's what he achieved frequently on Friday, when he played his watershed 1968 album Astral Weeks live in its entirety for the first time. The wondrous, youthful timbre of his voice then has evolved over the years into a richer, fuller instrument, with every bit of its remarkable elasticity very much intact." (L. A. Times) « less Synopsis Album Description Recorded in 1968 when the Belfast-bred, blues-rock music legend Van Morrison was just 22 years old, Astral Weeks immediately received critical acclaim and continues to be cited as one of the greatest albums of the rock era. Subsequently the album has been ranked on numerous Best Albums of All Time lists, including #19 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and the 40th Greatest Album Ever on VH-1's list in 2003.

Both Astral Weeks and Moondance (Morrison's next album) were inducted into the Grammy® Hall of Fame. Astral Weeks became a cult favorite and was seen almost as a religion to many artists. On November 7 and 8, 2008, four decades later, at the age 63, Van Morrison revisited Astral Weeks live in its entirety at the Hollywood Bowl, and delivered a jawdropping, awe-inspiring performance. The first half of the show featured Morrison playing timeless classics that have made him a legend, while the second half was the breathtaking performance of the Astral Weeks album.Van Morrison did not simply re-create what he did 40 years ago in a NY studio, but instead took the songs to a dramatically higher contemporary level. The jazz-rooted compositions of Astral Weeks are poetic stories of young love and the quest to find one's place in life. They were, and remain, ideal source material for musical improvisation that gives way to the sense of wonder for which Morrison has always striven. ". . .

transcendence is what Morrison has been after with his music from the beginning, and it's what he achieved frequently on Friday, when he played his watershed 1968 album Astral Weeks live in its entirety for the first time. The wondrous, youthful timbre of his voice then has evolved over the years into a richer, fuller instrument, with every bit of its remarkable elasticity very much intact." (L. A. Times) Similarly Requested CDs What a wonderful world, with two astral weeks in it Jesse Kornbluth | New York | 02/25/2009 (5 out of 5 stars) "Many who profess to love the music of Van Morrison have no idea that he made a CD called 'Astral Weeks'. I can understand that. 'Astral Weeks' was released in 1968, to zero fanfare and indifferent sales.

Over the years, those who heard it became evangelists for it: Elvis Costello called it "the most adventurous record made in the rock medium," and Steven Van Zandt, of Bruce Springsteen's band, said that "'Astral Weeks' was like a religion to us." Soon enough, it achieved cult status --- one of the most inventive and satisfying CDs ever recorded, known only to the in-crowd. I'm not a music critic --- I don't even pretend to play one on the Internet --- but it bothers me that junk sells in the zillions while quality sits alone in the corner. In 2004, it seemed to me that a web site about The Best could bring overlooked gems like 'Astral Weeks' to a larger audience. So when I launched HeadButler.com, 'Astral Weeks' was one of my first reviews --- and, soon enough, the CD became the site's poster child, its 25-words-or-less creation myth. And now it's back. ' 'Astral Weeks Live At the Hollywood Bowl' was recorded in November of 2008 before a predictably rabid audience. Morrison did not attempt to replicate the CD.

That would have been impossible, for in concert he makes Dylan seem predictable. He will suddenly change words and tempo, abandon himself to a groove, call an abrupt halt --- and expect the band to read his mind. I have seen Morrison several times over the years, and each time I walk away blinking at the mystery. He looks like a squat, stout, Irish postman and acts like an ill-tempered dictator. He may not hate the audience; maybe he just likes to show us his back. But when he opens his mouth, none of that matters. If I ventured in the slipstream Between the viaducts of your dreams Where the mobile steel rims crack And the ditch and the back roads stop Could you find me Would you kiss my eyes And lay me down In silence easy To be born again That's how the opening song begins, a love song set in urban decay. But the genius of Morrison --- the reason I see a line of connection from Blake to Wordsworth to Morrison --- is how quickly he reaches the exalted. In just a few verses, he's here: Going up that Mountainside Where the water runs crystal clear And then, 40 years after the original, he adds this: I believe I've transcended.

The rest of the performance is a demonstration of spiritual transcendence. This is not of great interest to many people who listen to music. They want a bouncy beat and a catchy lyric. So, a lot of the time, do I. But then I come to this: Then you're high, on your high-flying cloud Wrapped up in your magic shroud As ecstasy surrounds you This time it's found you. It's not just the words that transcend. The band is open, loose, inventive; this music is subtle as jazz and heart-pounding as rock. And Morrison almost seems to be having a good time --- in his phrase, "stepping lightly, just like a ballerina." What's in it for you? First, the message of the holy power of love: "You shall take me strongly in your arms again/And I will not remember that I ever felt pain." Then the aesthetic pleasure of hearing something great becoming, perhaps, even greater. And, personally, in a darkened room, late at night, a trip to the most exalted part of yourself.

What a wonderful world, with two astral weeks in it." Van Goes Home Again - A Triumph Coming Ever So Close to the corneilus | WESTMINSTER, MD United States | 02/25/2009 (5 out of 5 stars) "As a life long Beatles fan (born the year they disbanded), I thought that Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the greatest album of all time, until I heard Astral Weeks, which I immediately thought was TWICE as good. This revelation spawned a purchasing of the entire Van collection THEM through the present and still going. I was a little skeptical about a re-doing the greatest, most intimate album ever recorded, but then the early critic reviews started to come in and I couldn't wait to pick this up. The record is different to say the least, but somehow, amazingly, nearly as good. Perhaps something changes about a person, for me 20 years after hearing the original, and Van 40 years after recording it, but I'm able to follow him through the changes. I thought Weeks was something Van knew he could never achieve again and something he had put out of his mind for good.

What is most shocking for me with the Live record is that Van is still intimately familiar with these songs, like he's been listening to the disk himself for the last 40 years like we have. He even improvs some lyrics on Cyprus Avenue changing "Leaf on a Tree" to a more playful "Jelly on a Plate", but you can tell he is in complete control of his 40 year old possession. All Van's records are 3 stars or up for me, but he's only hit the 5 star mark about 4 times in 40 years, usually content to just put one or two brilliant moments on a record. At the age of 62, at least for me, Van has returned to 5 star form by being gutsy enough to try to tackle his best effort, again.

If Weeks is a 100 out of 100, Weeks Live is 97 out of 100." A DIFFERENT KIND OF MAGIC Colin Spence | Formby, UK | 02/24/2009 (4 out of 5 stars) "Re-visiting 'Astral Weeks' some 40 years after it was first released could have been tempting providence, especially so close on the heels of 'Keep It Simple'. On 'Live', VM partly re-creates and partly re-interprets the songs from 'Astral Weeks' (plus 'Listen to the Lion' from 'Saint Dominic's Preview'). As might be expected, much of the youthful vibrancy of VM's singing has gone - to be replaced with vocals which have a more 'lived in' feel. Nevertheless, he still sings with a lot of edge, and his unique phrasing and improvisations still remain very much in evidence; however, he is also more inclined to slur some of his words. VM always manages to surround himself with top class musicians, and 'Live' is no exception.

Compared with the original album, a wider range of instruments is played - it might be this, together with VM's mellower vocals, which gives the music a somewhat 'warmer glow'. Also, the crisp percussion and solid acoustic bass playing imbue many tracks with a sort of 'bluesy-jazz' quality and an easy groove. There is much fine playing to savour - I particularly enjoyed the sweet violin and cello playing which can be heard on most tracks. Many songs have been slightly re-structured by omitting a verse (or part of a verse); on the other hand, the music compensates by allowing more time for vocal improvisation and extended playing from the band. I usually listen to 'Astral Weeks' on headphones to enhance its intimacy (it takes me somewhere else); instead, I would suggest that 'Live' is best listened to through speakers so that the sound can fill the room. Whilst comparisons are inevitable, 'Live' should be judged on it's own merits.

The music on 'Astral Weeks' is exquisite, but the performances are 'detached'; with 'Live', there is a greater rapport between VM and his musicians - all concerned seem very much to be 'into the music', and VM sounds like he's enjoying himself. The sound/recording quality is very good and, I believe, has not been subjected to any post-recording 'tweaking'; the authenticity of the live atmosphere adds to, rather than detracts from, the listening experience. Even allowing for some downsizing of lyrical content, the songs are amongst some of the best ever written by VM, and there is plenty of good music to be heard on 'Live' - whereas 'Astral Weeks' is ....... 'Astral Weeks' (an album which almost defies adequate description). I think 'Live' is a highly enjoyable album." Van At The Odeon In Hamersmith Marley | Long Island, NY | 02/25/2009 (4 out of 5 stars) "While much has been said of Van Morrison revisiting the classic Astral Weeks after forty years, I can't help but think back to my trip to London in the Spring of 1974.

Glitter rock was all the rage and bands like Mott The Hoople were topping the charts with All The Young Dudes. I heard that Van was performing at The Odeon Theatre and so I immediately raced off to Hammersmith to purchase tickets. All week long I thought of personal favorites I hoped he'd perform; St. Dominick's Preview, Moon Dance, Tupelo Honey and Domino. Much to the surprise of everyone present, there was little in the way of his popular hits. Instead Van was in a decidedly blusey state of mind and played but few of his own compositions. His performance leaned heavily on Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Sonny Boy Williamson. He ended that first set with "You Don't Pull No Punches and You Don't Push The River", a song that made its way onto the Veedon Fleece album. All in all I'd have to say the audience, myself included, was largely disappointed. That's not to say that Van was awful. Afterall he can knock you out with almost anything he sings. But certainly this is not what we had come to hear.

After a brief intermission The Belfast Cowboy came back on stage with a small ensamble of musicians; keyboards, guitar, bass, flute and percussion. Without a word spoken (Van is not known to engage his audience in verbal patter) they broke out into strains of "Madame George". After approxmately eight to ten minutes of improvisation they segued into "Cyprus Avenue", followed by "Ballerina". It was positively stunning. As an encore Van did an extended version of "Listen To The Lion", which flowed into "Beside You", where he crawled around the stage like a snake, moaning and groaning, wailing and crying until he seemingly had nothing left emotionally. What an evening! What a performance! So now we have Van Live At The Hollywood Bowl, forty years removed from the original Astral Weeks Lp and thirty five years from his performance at The Odeon Theatre. The major difference is the expanded instumentation and more dynamic arrangements. One would have to say these elements tend to lose some of the intimacy of the original masterpiece. Perhaps there's too much going on. The violin for one becomes the lead instument and for my money it's too prominent.

The percussion on the original was faint almost nonexistant and understated. On this new recording we get a fuller more dynamic rhythm section. There's more drive, but once again it takes away from the subtlety and magic, that was so warm and inviting on the original studio album. In short, I do like this performance very much and I'm glad to see it so well received by both baby-boomers, like myself and Van's younger fans. However I can't help but think back to that long ago Spring evening in Hamersmith. No one could have guessed what Van had in store for us. We were all surprised but I dare say no one left the theater disappointed. For me he'll always be Van "The Man" and Astral Weeks will always be unique, indescribable and beyond comparison." Van Morrison: 'Astral Weeks' Revisited : NPR Glitter And Doom: Tom Waits In Concert July 29, 2008 Courtesy of the artist This week, Van Morrison released Astral Weeks: Live at the Hollywood Bowl, a recording that captures a couple of shows from November in which the singer performed his classic album in its entirety for the first time ever.

Originally released in 1968, Astral Weeks has routinely been named in music polls as one of the best records of all time. When Joe Levy, editor-in-chief of Blender magazine, was in his early teens, he and his friends were on a mission to buy all the five-star records in the original Rolling Stone Record Guide. Astral Weeks was one of them, so he bought it. For his first listen, he says he decided to bring it to the band room at his high school, where there was a massive stereo. "The thing was huge," Levy says. "And I thought, 'Big speakers, new record. This will be great.' The music was unusual — not what I was used to. And not what I was expecting. "I was like, 'What the hell is going on here? Where are the songs? And what is this dude talking about?' Which I still often ask when listening to this record." Article continues after sponsorship Levy says he didn't like the record — at least not at first. But he had paid hard-earned cash for it, so he wasn't about to give up. And it wasn't long before long Astral Weeks got to him.

"What I loved out of a Rolling Stones song, or even a Bruce Springsteen song, was how tightly constructed they were," Levy says. "They follow a set of rules. Not Astral Weeks. Astral Weeks is about a different way of organizing thought, a different way of organizing music. It's otherworldly." Unfamiliar Territory The songs on Astral Weeks were a far cry from the blissful pop of the hit single "Brown Eyed Girl," which had been released the previous year. Astral Weeks was spare, sprawling and lyrically demanding. Still, to hear Morrison tell it, the final outcome wasn't necessarily the result of some inspired vision. "I wanted to do it around the singing, and it had to be kind of jazzy, because that's the way I'm singing it," Morrison says. Morrison took the unorthodox step of bringing in a cast of accomplished jazz musicians to play on what was ostensibly a pop record — people like drummer Connie Kay of The Modern Jazz Quartet and bassist Richard Davis, who had played with the likes of Eric Dolphy . But, perhaps more important, Morrison gave his session players a tremendous amount of creative freedom. "The approach was spontaneity," Morrison says.

"That was the whole point of having this particular group of people. That was that performance on those days." The album's sound engineer, Brooks Arthur, says it was clear from very early on that this was going to be a memorable recording. He recalls feeling lucky just to have his hands on the mixing board. "This is not an exaggeration," Arthur says. "A cloud came along; it was called the Van Morrison sessions. We all hopped upon that cloud, and the cloud took us away for a while. And we made this album, and we landed when it was done." Morrison's own recollections are not nearly as vivid. "You have to understand something," he says. "A lot of this ... there was no choice. I was totally broke. So I didn't have time to sit around pondering or thinking all this through. It was just done on a basic pure survival level. I did what I had to do." Freedom Still, Astral Weeks inspires a profound feeling of freedom. Glen Hansard, singer of the rock band The Frames , got his start performing songs from Astral Weeks on the streets of Dublin. He says that the feeling of freedom in particular is what captivated him when he first started listening to the record.

"It made me realize that so much of what makes music great is courage, and up to that, what I thought made music great was practice and study," Hansard says. "I think Astral Weeks was the first album that I'd heard that introduced me to the idea of, 'You just have to be good and just go for it.' "This album says there's more to life than you thought," Hansard says. "Life can be lived more deeply, with a greater sense of fear and horror and desire than you ever imagined." Veteran music writer Greil Marcus has listened to a lot of records. But he can confidently say he's listened to Astral Weeks more than any other. "You can hear these moments of invention and gasping for air, and you reach your hand and you close your fist and when you open your fist there's a butterfly in it," Marcus says. "There really was something there, but you couldn't have seen it. You couldn't have known." With a record as evocative as Astral Weeks, there's a nagging desire to understand what in Morrison's life inspired it — to know where the songs come from, what they mean. "It's not about me," Morrison says. "It's totally fictional.

It's put together of composites, of conversations I heard — you know, things I saw in movies, newspapers, books, whatever. It comes out as stories. That's it. There's no more." A New Audience Perhaps it's better that way — better that Astral Weeks remains up for grabs, unburdened by biographical details. It's better that it remains what Greil Marcus calls a common language. "I was so shocked when I was teaching a seminar at Princeton just a couple years ago, and out of 16 students, four of them said their favorite album was Astral Weeks," Marcus says. "Now, how did it enter their lives? We're talking about an album that was recorded well before they were born, and yet it spoke to them. They understood its language as soon as they heard it." Despite the importance Astral Weeks continues to have for listeners, both young and old, its meaning to Morrison is far different. For him, it's as if it's just another record in a long career. "I don't know how I felt at the time ... but I felt it was a good piece of work and it was a good piece of music and that's how I felt about it," Morrison says.

Of course, for the people who love Astral Weeks, none of this really matters. Morrison's relationship to the album has little to do with their own. Related NPR Stories Astral Weeks (song) | Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing - eBooks | Read eBooks online 8 References Recording On the first recording session for the album on September 25, 1968, this song was the last of four recorded for that date. John Payne, the flautist who had been working with Morrison, said it was the first time he had ever heard it, and that although the song may sound rehearsed it was actually captured from the only take. [1] [2] Composition Van Morrison described the song "Astral Weeks" as being: "like transforming energy, or going from one source to another with it being born again like a rebirth. I remember reading about you having to die to be born.

It's one of those songs where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel and that's basically what the song says." [3] Morrison told Steve Turner that he was working on the song back in Belfast in 1966 when he visited painter Cezil McCartney who had drawings on astral projection "and that's why I called it "Astral Weeks". [1] Brian Hinton 's review of the song states: "All is uncertain, this spiritual rebirth a question still, not a statement, and Van equates his move to a new world — both America and that of love— with a sense of being lost, "ain't nothing but a stranger in this world". [3] Acclaim The song, "Astral Weeks" was rated #475 on the WXPN All Time Greatest Songs in 2004 [4] and #875 on the list of 885 Essential Songs voted on by listeners of WXPN in 2008. [5] Appearance on other albums "Astral Weeks" was featured on Morrison's album Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl , released in 2009 to celebrate forty years since Astral Weeks was first released.

Personnel Van Morrison: Astral Weeks (Expanded Edition) - Music on Google Play ( 9) Description Astral Weeks is the second studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was recorded at Century Sound Studios in New York City during three sessions in September and October 1968, although most participants and biographers agree that the eight songs were culled from the first and last early evening sessions. Except for John Payne, Morrison and the assembled jazz musicians had not played together before and the recordings commenced without rehearsals or lead sheets handed out. The cover art, music and lyrics of the album portray the symbolism equating earthly love and heaven that would often feature in Morrison's work. When Astral Weeks was released by Warner Bros. Records in November 1968, it did not receive promotion from the label and was not an immediate success with consumers or critics. Blending folk, blues, jazz, and classical music, the album's songs signaled a radical departure from the sound of his previous pop hits, such as "Brown Eyed Girl". Astral Weeks' critical standing eventually improved greatly, however, and it has since been viewed as one of rock music's greatest and most important records.

Question: Who recorded the 1968 album 'Astral Weeks'?
Answer: Van Morrison